The Things I Keep

*I recently migrated my blog and some of the pictures didn’t make the move. So please excuse the words where pictures should be.

We all have things we keep.
Maybe it’s pictures from your first homecoming dance.
An old corsage.
Ticket stubs to your first rock concert.

I have a few places within my home where I keep things.
Little mementos.
Pieces of me from the past.
Reminders that I used to be something different than I am today.
I think it is good to have those reminders here and there.
To show your spouse and children, even yourself.
It’s fun to look back.

I have a drawer in our bedroom that is a little hideaway of past treasures.

Items that I keep close for many reasons.
To comfort me, to take me away, maybe even to inspire me?
I don’t know when I started filing things away in here.
It’s like a secret drawer in this dresser.
A bonus, secret hiding place of things I don’t want to put in a scrapbook.
Things I want to touch, feel, hold in my hands.

Things that made me proud.

Things that blogging has brought to me.

This is a “vision board” (thank you, Melisa, for the actual term that I forgot).
I made this at a blogging event a few years ago.

Of where I see myself, how I saw myself.

Jewelry.
I am not a big jewelry person but I save important jewelry.
The bracelets and necklaces my children have made.
A watch that my oldest daughter used to wear as a toddler.
A bracelet that she and I bought together back when it was cool to have matching mom and daughter jewelry.

Love notes.

And more love notes.

A reminder that they aren’t always going to be little.

A letter to my Gramma.

A letter from my Gramma to Rebecca that she gave to me after she passed away.
I miss that handwriting.

Special cards and letters from friends and family.

Some people keep journals, I keep day planners.

Because I like to remember what we were doing on a random April day in 2010.
When someday I will miss the busyness.

20 thoughts on “The Things I Keep”

I just wrote this idea on my "blog post ideas" list after I caught Charlie trying to donate an old flannel shirt that he used to wear when we were dating. I love getting rid of stuff, but nobody's donating that shirt.

Ooh I love this. I'm not usually sentimental, I'm the opposite of a keeper. But I have been keeping all the cards and notes I've received from my blog friends. My children's abundant artwork (and they're only 4.5 and 2, so imagine how much we'll have in 10 years). Old notebooks I wrote in when I was working – I like to look at them and think, hey, I was smart once! 🙂

Cards. Photos. Little stubs and receipts from vacations. Every time I go to throw something away, I think about how much I like looking through old stuff like that from when I was a kid, or even when my parents were kids.

I love this post. As if I needed any more evidence that we are one and the same person, I also keep my old planners. I used to buy cute ones, but these days I just get a regular old student planner that begins and ends in July. #twinsies

Love this (and I spotted Erma in the pictures! I mean, Erma, Erma, because that would be weird, and illegal). I save a lot of random stuff, and sometimes think, WHY?, but other times I'm so thrilled for the touch of nostalgia an item may bring.

Welcome!

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”

-Sue Monk Kidd

“Humor is healing.”

-Bonnie Hunt

“Well, you think what you want about me, I’m not changing. I like me…’Cause I’m the real article. What you see is what you get.”

-Del Griffith

“All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am. But these stories don’t mean anything when you’ve got no one to tell them to.”